The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has set out how it will regulate, inspect and rate care homes and community adult social care in England.
Following extensive joint development, consultation and testing over the last eighteen months of which Disability Rights UK has been involved, CQC has issued documents called 'handbooks', which will help care providers to understand how they will be assessed and rated from now on.
Specialist teams, including trained members of the public (called Experts by Experience), will inspect services, unannounced, against what matters most to the people who use them – are they safe, caring, effective, responsive to their needs, and well-led.
CQC will then rate these services as Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate so that the public has clear information to help them make choices about their care.
CQC has issued one handbook covering its regulation of residential adult social care (care homes, with and without nursing) and another covering its regulation of community adult social care (including services that care for people in their own homes).
Andrea Sutcliffe, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care at the Care Quality Commission said:
"We have developed our regulatory model with people who use services, care providers, commissioners, national partners and our staff. I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time and effort to respond during our consultation, participate in our various events, and work with us during our test inspections to help us to develop our strengthened approach.
Our new regulatory model has people right at its heart. We will ask the questions that matter most to people who use services, listen to their views, take action to protect them, and provide them with clear, reliable and accessible information about the quality of their services."
In response to people's feedback during the consultation, CQC says that it:
- will further develop its 'Provider Information Returns' with an online system so that care providers can submit information about their services to CQC continuously.
- has strengthened and reduced the number of 'key lines of enquiry' that its inspection teams will use to guide them on their visits and reviewed their language so that they reflect current practice, do not use jargon and are fully focused on people who use services.
- has reviewed the descriptions of its ratings so that they are clearer and use plain English.
- will shortly publish guidance on the use of surveillance for health and adult social care providers, as well as for members of the public, to help them make decisions about its potential use. CQC expects to publish this guidance at the end of the month.
The CQC handbooks for adult social care providers are available @ www.cqc.org.uk